


Drabble Collection 1

by skytrain



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M, Preseries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/759493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skytrain/pseuds/skytrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love and other obstacles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drabble Collection 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pairing: Sakaeguchi/Suyama  
> Rating: G  
> Summary: Sakaeguchi and Suyama, the very first encounter.  
> Words: 874

Sakaeguchi fiddles with the collar of his borrowed shirt and pulls the lapels of his black jacket closer to himself. The stain still feels wet despite his lengthy commute to school and the bright orange mark of spilled fruit juice is stark against the faded cotton of his father’s old dress shirt.  His stomach lurches and Sakaeguchi has the distinct urge to flee to the nearest washroom and hide himself away for the next three years of high school.

The trees that line the path up to the school’s front gates shine pale chartreuse in the morning sun, still too early in the season for cherry blossoms. In a couple weeks, they’ll explode into an array of light pinks in the same way that they look like in all those youthful anime and dramas where the main character strides into his high school on the first day, in search for a grand adventure and a heart palpitating kind of first love. Sakaeguchi isn’t counting on Halle Berry to stride through the front doors. Mostly, he just wants to keep his head afloat. Above water.    

He squints, eyeing the swarming masses of his future classmates with trepidation. All around him, Nishiura freshman make their way cautiously through the groups of milling upperclassmen from various school clubs on the hunt for recruits. Most of the sports club members pay him no mind, having seen Sakaeguchi help Coach Momoe and Abe with baseball fieldwork previously.

A raucous group of boys with soccer club applications in hand walk slowly ahead of him, blocking his path. Sakaeguchi tries to inch his way through a gap between two of them, only to get himself whacked in the face when one of the taller boys turns to hit his friend for an inappropriate comment. He stumbles clumsily but a large hand is there to meet his back and stabilize him.

“Hey, watch out.” A young man’s voice says. Sakaeguchi turns to apologize, but the other boy’s gaze is fixated at a place a little above his head, on the boy who shoved him.

“Sorry, man.” the boy says. He gives a little bow and races off to catch up with his retreating friends.

“Thank you.” Sakaeguchi says. He gets a good look at the other boy for the first time, smiling uncertainly.

“You’re welcome.” the boy says. His crisp white collar cuts a severe line across his throat and his blazer accentuates the broadness of his shoulders. He has a crew cut even shorter than Sakaeguchi’s, marking him as an athlete of some kind. The boy returns his smile easily. Friendly. “Crowded, huh? Really hard to find the right clubs.”

“Yeah. Uh…?”

“I’ll be on my way now.” the boy says. “You be careful.”

Sakaeguchi attempts to shout out another thank you, but the boy is already on his way. He’s a bit taller than a lot of the other freshmen, and he watches as the boy bobs and weaves his way through the crowds, framed by the falling green buds of Spring.

He doesn’t look away until the other boy is a far speck in the distance.

Later, Sakaeguchi enters his first year class, a few of his classmates looking up to watch him. He avoids eye contact, grabbing a seat and placing his bag on floor beside his desk. More file in as the first school bell draws nearer, some boisterous among a group of their friends and some like him, doing their best to blend in with the walls. The door slides open again with a little force, and Sakaeguchi looks up instinctively, locking eyes with a familiar face.

“Hey, you again!” The boy from earlier says. He grabs the empty seat next to Sakaeguchi. “Weird coincidence.”

“Me again.” Sakaeguchi replies. “Did you manage to find your club?”

“Eventually. I don’t think I got your name earlier?”

“Sakaeguchi.” he says. “Yuuto Sakaeguchi. And you are?”

“Shouji Suyama.”

“So, Shouji Suyama…what clubs are you joining?”

“Baseball,” Suyama says. “My older brother played baseball too. How about you?”

“I play baseball,” Sakaeguchi says. “If you’re Japanese, you gotta play baseball.”

“You got that right.” Suayama grins. “Yuuto Sakaeguchi, I think I like you already.”

They laugh and Sakaeguchi pushes back that one voice of anxiety and doubt back down to the edges of his consciousness.

 _I play baseball_ , he’d said back then. What he really meant had been something closer to _I’m thinking about playing baseball_ and _I want to fall in love with baseball again_ or _baseball is my grand adventure of choice (destination: Koushien)_. His days toiling to prepare Nishiura’s fresh field were one thing, but Sakaeguchi longs to hear the clang of his bat against a good pitch. He’d found, in the months since his unofficial retirement from the sport, that the lack of adrenaline in his life paved a space for a lot of emptiness. Something had stopped for him and he was looking forward to the handles of his clock to start inching forward towards a new beginning.

What would come of his decision? Of Nishiura, of his baseball, and of summer?

He didn’t know, but Sakaeguchi had already past the point of no return as he reached out a hand to shake Suyama’s.


End file.
